If you’ll recall, last time I made a bet that one of
three things could happen from three different characters that would officially
kickstart the full on war between the Earth and the Moon. I lost that bet…cause I didn’t factor in the
Militia as a whole going rogue and trying to kidnap or kill Dianna depending on
the situation. Naturally, my least
favorite character Sochie was at the forefront of these plans…so yeah, I lost
the bet. But the war is on and the
pacing of Turn A Gundam increased a bit as a result.
The destruction of Nocris was the most intense battle of
the series yet. Buildings were
shattered, lives were upheaved. My
favorite moment of it all, however, included something not going right for
another non favorite character Guin. As
he tried to save his own skin, Guin found himself abandoned and tried to pay a
man a large sum of money for a horse to escape.
When the rider told Guin his money was useless, that was a huge slap to
the face of a man who thought he was the most important person on the
planet. It’s a moment taken straight
from the 1950’s adaptation of War of the Worlds, complete with tripod Mobile
Suits blasting everything in sight, and I loved it.
The momentum continued to build as we saw Loran on
protection detail of the Queen, though he isn’t aware of it. That’s one thing im going to have to get used
to going forward with these reviews. It
doesn’t look like Kihel and Dianna will be trading back places anytime
soon. So Dianna is running around with
Loran and experiencing the beauty of Earth (when there isn’t a war on) and
Kihel is in command of a very unstable foreign military force. The changed dynamics for both characters
should be interesting. But how has no
one caught that these two have traded places yet. Both Loran and Harry both noticed something
odd about their charges. But much like
Harry almost figuring out that Loran and “Laura” are one in the same, we’re
just gonna have to accept that common sense will be absent on this particular
plotline, even if the characters themselves are incredibly likeable.
Back to the story, Loran and Dianna’s travels proved a
great mix of both action and character drama.
Loran and the Turn A got plenty of battle time both against Corin and
Harry. The latter fight ended with Loran
defeated but the former saw him the victor…hopefully. And actually, Loran wouldn’t have survived
his fight with Corin had it not been for Dianna’s intervention, holding a gun
and threatening to off Corin if he didn’t let Loran live. Dianna’s got some serious bad ass cred for
such an act. Still, I don’t believe
Corin is truly gone…and that kind of sucks cause he’s an out of control monster
who has Graham Ackers lust for wanting to fight Gundams and he obliterated a
city to try and get the Turn A’s attention…he’s got to go.
Onto Dianna, we got a bit more insight to her mindset and
her past in this set. Turns out, the
Queen has been to Earth once before and even fell in love. This lead to a tragic storyline for the poor
girl as she was forced to witness the descendant of her former love, Will Game
(guy even had the same name but with way more scruff on his face…it was a
little distracting actually), fall into a desperate madness trying to get to
the moon to find…well Dianna, not realizing she was there the whole time. Normally I feel like this kind of storyline
would slow things down a bit. However,
the writing for much of the main cast is great and this was a good examination
of Dianna in the past and present while setting her up for her future endeavors. Clearly, Dianna’s missed a lot while in cryo
sleep and now that she’s seen more of the beautiful Earth and the havoc the war
is causing, including the lives its taken, she’ll have to double her efforts to
seek peace. How she’s going to do this
while NOT back with the Diana Counter is the biggest mystery and, like I said,
I don’t think Dianna is going back to her forces anytime soon. It was good the series took some time to let
this story play out, even though I feared it might slow everything down after
the official start of the war.
I gotta say, the production quality of Turn A Gundam was
at an all time high this week. The
animation of the battles and Mobile Suits stepped up to the challenge and all
of Loran’s fights were well drawn and executed.
Definitley working overtime was Yoko Kanno, channeling her brilliant
Escaflowne battle theme and lovers themes for the fight scenes and Dianna’s
quieter moments by herself and with Will.
This woman is a Master of Music like always. And holy crap, ZAKUS!!!!!...ok they’re not
called Zaku’s but those are absolutely Zaku’s being used by the Luizanna
Militia. It almost begs the question and
one I know is pretty popular with this series: if Zaku’s are present, is this
just a cheeky wink for the fans or is this the first hint at a possible widely
connected universe theory? I’m not going
to delve into that just yet, there’s still a lot of show to cover yet so I’ll
come back to it.
This set of Turn A Gundam episodes surprised me. It started with a bang and teetered on the
edge of grinding to a halt with a more romantic, character driven plot that could’ve
been filler. But said subplot was
important to the development of one of the shows most important players. And the series never fully sacrificed the
action or intensity to satisfy it’s progression and definitely not its
conclusion. If it weren’t for more
grating scenes with Sochie trying to be the pilot she isn’t meant to be or the
introduction of Guin’s spy/lover Lily (who seems to be a more irritating rich
brat than Sochie), id say this set of episodes was damn near perfect. But Turn A Gundam continues to impress and im
looking forward to pushing right into the halfway mark next week. See ya Monday as the journey continues.
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